Galveston celebrates its glory days

New 'Deep Water Jubilee' project focuses on island's heyday before storm's destruction

GALVESTON - Galveston was the brightest star on the Gulf Coast and in Texas when Congress approved money in 1890 to make it a deepwater port, giving it an advantage over a growing rival, Houston.

Before the Hurricane of 1900 would devastate Galveston and begin a gradual decline, the announcement of $6.2 million to deepen the port seemed to ensure the city's prosperity and its nickname, "The Wall Street of the South."

Wealthy businessmen financed a series of glittering celebrations labeled the "Deep Water Jubilee" for a project that promised to enrich the already gilded city.

The Galveston Historical Foundation will remember the creation of the deepwater port and the apex of the island's economic and cultural success with a new Deep Water Jubilee, a months-long series of events that began Sunday with less glitz than the original but more culture.

The Deep Water Jubilee is part of a larger foundation project, the Galveston History Project, that focuses on the lives of people behind historical events. The Jubilee also is an experiment in making those events more engaging, said W. Dwayne Jones, the foundation's executive director.

"This is one of the trial stories," Jones said. "We want to re-engage people with Galveston's history and architecture in a different way than we have done in the past."

The foundation is focusing on slices of island history to reveal the people from all walks of life who were part of it. "It's a real short snapshot of Galveston history," Jones said.

Behind Bishop's Palace

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

One of the characters whose life will be explored during the Jubilee in a series of lectures, tours, concerts and other events is Col. Walter Gresham, whose lobbying convinced Congress to fund the deepening of the Port of Galveston. Aside from his role in modernizing the port, Gresham is perhaps best known for building a mammoth tribute to 19th century architecture that became known as the Bishop's Palace at the corner of Broadway Boulevard and 14th Street.

Gresham, a lawyer, was among the city elite vying to build the grandest house. Gresham hired renowned architect Nicholas Clayton to build a colossal structure of gray sandstone and granite equipped with four-story turrets, winged horses of Assyria, tiled cones and numerous chimneys and balconies. The house would have cost nearly $9 million in 2015 dollars.

Gresham was a member of the Deep Water Committee, formed in 1881 by some of the most powerful and wealthy men in the city. There were no deepwater ports on the Gulf, but rival New Orleans was building one and an upstart Houston company, the Houston Direct Navigation Co., was taking business from the Port of Galveston. Two sand bars lay across the entrance to the channel that allowed only 8 feet of clearance, but most steamships needed 20 feet. Ships were forced to anchor outside the harbor while the cargo was lightered, placed on flat-bottomed scows that were pushed to the wharves by tug boats.

The method was costly and many shippers were attracted to the cheaper lightering operation in Houston. The Houston Telegraph boasted that merchants there were finally "free of the extortions of Galveston's 'bete noir,' its hideous wharf monopoly," Gary Cartwright wrote in "Galveston, a History of the Island."

Gresham was tasked with lobbying Congress, and he concentrated on states like Colorado and Kansas that were looking for a closer port to connect by rail to their growing markets. "Colorado was coming into statehood and they were looking for a closer port," said Renee Tallent, the foundation's collections manager. "It helped us be more competitive and helped us make an alliance with western states."

With the support of politicians from other states, Gresham convinced Congress to appropriate the $6.2 million. The money financed the dredging of the port and the construction of two parallel jetties into the Gulf, one from the eastern end of Galveston Island and one from the western end of the Bolivar Peninsula. Engineers built a railroad trestle into the Gulf to bring 5-ton sandstone blocks that eventually formed jetties capped with 10-ton granite slabs.

The jetties created a channel ranging from 27 to 40 feet deep that still protects the entrance to the Galveston and Houston ship channels.

Celebrations galore

After the money from Congress was secured, the city formed a committee to advertise to the world that Galveston was getting a deepwater port and to plan festivities to celebrate and honor the states that had helped secure the appropriation. "They invited partners and mayors from western cities and politicians," Tallent said.

In November 1890, the city sponsored parades, fireworks, oyster roasts and a huge invitation-only banquet, but only men were invited, she said. Women were expected to help with the decorations but were not allowed to attend.

Reviving Mardi Gras

In February 1891, Galveston revived its Mardi Gras, which had withered into a few private parties over the decades, to celebrate the Deep Water Jubilee. The Krewe of Momus landed on the wharf with great fanfare, and the next day wagons decked with elaborate advertising displays paraded through the city in a display of commercial power.

Mardi Gras was followed by a Saengerfest, a festival of German choral groups that had been a tradition in Texas since before the Civil War. Texas cities vied each year to be chosen as Saengerfest host, and Galveston had been chosen the previous year. The city made the Saengerfest part of its Deep Water Jubilee, lavishly funded by wealthy businessmen. The tradition likely died after the United States entered World War I and all things German became unpopular, Tallent said.

The tale of the Deep Water Jubilee will be laid out in detail at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 21 in a lecture by Tallent at Menard Hall.